Bear Taylor 
Good Morning… Day THIRTEEN of our long look back to Operation Rolling Thunder…Fifty Years Ago…
13 MARCH 1966 (NYT)… ON THE HOMEFRONT… Big Sunday paper—they don’t get any bigger than a NYT Sunday edition… “All the news that’s fit to print.” Rainy and drizzly –good day for reading…Page I lead article provides the results of the Saturday meeting in Washington of 41 of the state Governors with LBJ, a three hour briefing in the Blue Room at the White House…meeting concluded with a unanimously approved resolution backing the President’s handling and planning of the war in Vietnam… LBJ: “We cannot for see how many planes we are going to lose, how many shells we are going to fire, how many losses we are going to suffer. But as near as we can tell, we have provided for them in the budget.”…Jack Raymond reported that the Joint Chiefs had resumed pressure on the Administration to authorize the bombing of Haiphong and the mining of the harbor, “…the main harbor of North Vietnam.”…Seymour Topping, back on page 9, reporting from Saigon, wrote that NVN …(with pledges of support from the Soviet Union and the PRC)…”is believed to be planning a protracted war in South Vietnam until the United States bends to meet its peace terms.” The NVN position remains: that the United States must withdraw all forces and agree to the program proposed by the National Liberation Front, parent organization of the Viet Cong, in determining the future of the country. Topping: “American bombing was undertaken to demonstrate that North Vietnam could not be a sanctuary for operations in South Vietnam. But response has been to develop sanctuaries in Hanoi, Haiphong and near the Chinese border.” He noted that the population of Haiphong at 370,000, and the presence of ships in the harbor from countries favorable to the United States, were significant considerations in any decision to bomb military and economic targets in Haiphong…. An editorial contained a quote from a President Johnson reelection campaign speech in September 1964: “I want to be very cautious and careful and use force only as a last resort when I start dropping bombs that are likely to involve American boys in war in Asia with 700 million Chinese…so we are not going North…and we are not going South.”…James Reston had a lengthy piece on page 10E. Included: “The divisions over Vietnam are wide and deep and what is more unfortunate, they have become intensely personal. This war has not seen the usual closing of ranks behind the President. The criticism has mounted with the military violence…”Reston referred to the war as…”a low level civil war fueled by outside major powers furthering their own interests.”… That sounds familiar!!!
13 MARCH 1966…ROLLING THUNDER… The only fixed wing loss in Southeast Asia on this date was another AC-47D from the 4th Air Combat Squadron detachment out of Danang. The aircraft launched from Danang, headed west, and was never seen again. No wreckage was ever found. Search area centered on a small village 45-miles west of Danang. Lost forever: CAPTAIN HOWARD WILLIAM HENNINGER, CAPTAIN ROBERT EDWARD PASEKOFF, CAPTAIN GERALD EVERETT OLSEN, SSGT MARSHALL ERWIN PAULEY, SSGT GENE EDWIN DAVIS, TSGT EDWIN EVERTON MORGAN, and SGT DEAN ARNOLD DUVALL. All now listed as Killed in Action… As I type this I have to pause and ponder the pain and suffering of seven families for fifty years and counting. Who is remembering these warriors, who perished in 1966, on this, the 50th anniversary of their death? I am. Thank you, readers, for joining me in thinking about these brothers in arms and their families for a few moments in 2016. These men died with their faces toward the enemy. Gone but not forgotten.
RIPPLE SALVO… I want to share a note of feedback on my 11 March RTR blog that jumped back to December 1965, Christmas at Yankee Station. Former VA-113 Stingers squadron mate Bob Naughton writes: “Bear. I enjoyed the reviews of life on station in December 1965 more than I did living through it. It was one of the worst flying times we had. The weather was terrible and I personally flew 3/4 of my 22 sorties at night. We were flying a lot of road recce in marginal weather with only the leader’s tail light on dim. I flew several of them and consider it some of the worst survival efforts of the war. By the way, the LT from VA-113 killed on the 17th was Dave Wickham, not David Wallace. It was a bad night and Wick dropped a wing at the ramp and flipped over and slid up the flight deck inverted. He never had a chance to eject. We canceled the next launch for wx and then decided we should launch a flight to check out the wx over the beach so we could up the sortie count. Dick Willet and I drew the assignment. Dick was spotted on cat 2 and I was on cat 1. We launched together and I immediately lost sight of him. We broke out at 20000-feet and tried to find a hole to find some targets. Never could find anything so we dropped our banded lug bombs under radar control over Tiger Island. We both recovered alright but I remember it was a worthless risk. Thanks for your account.” (ed.note, Nort was downed on his second cruise in 1967 and was a POW until February 1973. He returned toe service and commanded an A-7 squadron and retired as a Captain. His top row of medals is all red, white and blue. So is he. Bob, thanks for the note and info on David Wickham… gone but not forgotten.
Also a great note from Denny Wisely…He adds to the 11 March RTR blog… “Bear. When we deployed on our first cruise, Carl Austin was the only guy who had any combat experience. He flew A-1s in Korea. On our first day up North after warming up on Dixie Station, he didn’t come back. Fear rippled through the squadron. Some guys were opening their Christmas presents early. December ’65 was a tough eye opening month.”…Denny adds…”when Jack Cartwright didn’t come back, J.E. Keller stepped up to the plate and a guy named Ron Hays became XO.”
( ed. note …Ron Hays would go on to four stars. When he was Vice Chief of Naval Operations in 1984, one of his most difficult tasks was “Bear Control Officer”… I worked for him on a short leash as the “Special Assistant to CNO,” and had a ball.)
Denny also filled in some info on…” Bill Shankel, shot down and captured on the same strike I was on, was my roommate in flight training. After he returned (from Hilton Hanoi) he got his degree and went on to be a surgeon.”
Admin note: This is “get the website up and running” weekend… my own kind of March Madness… a new adventure for an old bear… In response to a few queries on use of material broadcast on this RTR blog… here is the canned response that will be included somewhere on the homepage…”All material posted on this website is released for non-commercial use and transmission.” The only item I have put a fence around is the title, “Rolling Thunder Remembered”, which I copyrighted.
Thanks for being there and supporting this effort to breathe some public interest in an era of great human sacrifice and the lessons that should have been learned in our fumbled experience in Vietnam, fifty years ago.
Lest we forget… Bear
